Dio – Holy Diver
Joe Siegler
- AllMyVinyl #134
- Band: Dio
- Album Title: Holy Diver
- Release Date: 25 May 1983
- Date purchased: 25 May 1983
- Location purchased: Unknown, but probably Sam Goody.
- Color of vinyl: black
- Number of discs: 1
- Links: [ Wikipedia | Discogs | Band Website | Complete album on Youtube ]
In the fall of 1981, I had gotten into Black Sabbath for the first time. The band then was Iommi / Butler / Dio / Appice. I loved that album, loved that vibe, and I was quite annoyed when during production of the Live Evil album it was said that Dio and Appice had left Sabbath to form their own band. On one hand I was wanting to see what came next, but on the other hand I was annoyed the lineup broke up. I was fully prepared to not like the new Dio lineup, because I was mad my main band had broken up. But there’s no way I could do that, because when it arrived, Holy Diver blew the ever lovin’ shit out of everything out there. The album that Ronnie co-wrote and produced was off the charts spectacular. This was the first of the 10 studio albums the Dio band (in whatever incarnation) put out. If you count other studio albums Ronnie was on (Dehumanizer & The Devil You Know), that makes 12 studio albums Ronnie did between 1983 and his death in 2010. None of them hit as hard as Holy Diver did. This is as close to perfection as you could get in this musical space.
As I sit here writing this in 25 May 2025, the album is now 42 years old, and it’s lost NOTHING. Some albums from the past (and especially from the mid 80’s era) don’t work as well decades down the line, but not this. From the opening riff of Stand Up and Shout through all the other tracks and closing out with Shame on the Night, this album punches you in the face from the start, and never lets up. It’s banger after banger after banger. Ronnie could not have started his Dio band era any stronger.
The band for this initial lineup is of course Ronnie James Dio on vocals, Vivian Campbell on guitar, Jimmy Bain on bass, and Vinny Appice on drums. There was no formal keyboardist in the band at the earliest stage, keys in this era were handled either by Ronnie himself or Jimmy Bain. We didn’t get a keyboardist until later. Vinny of course came with Ronnie from Black Sabbath and was the first formal “member”. Right this minute I can’t recall if they looked at other bassists besides Jimmy Bain, but Ronnie of course had worked with Jimmy before in Rainbow (on the Rising album and subsequent tour). Vivian Campbell was to me a total unknown. He did have a band prior to Dio (Sweet Savage), but I had never heard of them either, which I suspect was the case for MOST people. Given the guitarists that Ronnie played with in the two bands prior to this (Tony Iommi & Ritchie Blackmore), this new guy had some stuff to stand up to – and man did he! Viv smokes on this album. While Viv & Ronnie recorded three studio albums together, this one was by far the best of the three (the best of the 10 Dio albums really). I seem to recall reading somewhere along the line that someone else they looked at was Jakey Lou Williams (more well known as Jake E. Lee), but I’m not sure how far that got in terms of “Is any of his work on the final album” – not playing of course, but I mean songwriting. I probably could research that, but I view Lee’s time in Dio as more of a footnote. Vivian was the guy here, and really grabbed the spotlight.
There’s an issue I wanted to bring up briefly, and that’s the release date of this album. Most places say 25 May 1983, and just about everywhere (including the official Dio socials) will post that as the anniversary date. However, I’ve always questioned it – that’s because 25 May 1983 was a Wednesday, and most territories didn’t release albums on Wednesdays. That’s not to say it didn’t happen, but I don’t recall Ronnie – AT THIS POINT – being big enough of a draw to have a record label release an album on a non standard date. Back in this time albums in the US were released either on Tuesday or a Friday. I know there was a time where they switched from Fri to Tue as the “usual” day, but I can’t recall now four decades out or so when that happened. It went back to perma-Friday some years back, but in the 80’s I think it was Tuesday? Anyway, it definitely wasn’t Wednesday. I did broach this subject to Wendy Dio once around early 2020, but this was right around the time Covid hit, and she said she’d be willing to have someone go into the Rhino/Warner archives and dig up the true original release materials, but that got forgotten about in Covid lockdowns, and we never got back to it. I’m still pretty convinced 25 May 1983 isn’t the true release date, but I can’t PROVE IT CONCLUSIVELY otherwise, so I just let this one go.
Whether it was 25 May or whatever the date was I was definitely there on day 1 to buy the album. Bought it on vinyl as I was still into vinyl. CD’s were still a few years off for me, and my boombox/walkman phase hadn’t fully taken over yet, so I bought Holy Diver on vinyl, and that’s a copy I still have to this day. As I’ve mentioned in this series before, I had a lot of my vinyl stashed in my mom’ basement when I moved to Texas back in 1992. My copy of Holy Diver is one of those survivors. It’s what I’m playing today, my original May 1983 purchase of the vinyl that survives into 2025, and plays well. No pops, skips, or anything like that. I’ve had several other versions of this over the years. I did buy it on cassette tape once I got my walkman a couple of years after this, but that doesn’t survive anymore – long gone. I also have the 2022 remix on vinyl, but about that.. The base songs are the same, but they feel “off”. This album is perfect, so why do you need to mess with this. Pass. I also have that 2022 release on a 4 CD deluxe CD set, which does include a new remaster of the original. That sounds great, but this is a vinyl series, so I’m using my OG 1983 vinyl again.
One other thing I wanted to bring up was this. The last show on the Mob Rules tour was 31 Aug 1982. This album was released in May 1983. Now eight months isn’t an obscenely short amount of time to launch an album, but Ronnie also had to put the band together, write it, get it out there. Not impossible again, but it was a lot to do in that amount of time. I’ve always wondered how much of this would have been on the hypothetical next Black Sabbath album had Ronnie and Vinny stayed there. The booklet from the 2022 4 CD deluxe edition mentions that proto versions of the songs Holy Diver & Don’t Talk to Strangers were written when Ronnie was still in Sabbath, but one has to assume those are just the ones we know about. By no means am I suggesting that the entire album existed that early on, because I know two songs are influenced by Viv’s old band (one has a direct riff lifted from there , and another had a song title). But Ronnie was the driving force there, but I can kinda sorta hear the old Sabbath influence in the song Holy Diver. It wouldn’t be the last time that concept would come up either, as folks have long thought that a couple of songs from the Strange Highways album were leftovers from Dehumanizer. But no matter where the songs may have originated, they’re on THIS album, and they’re fucking bangers. So it might be time to get to some of them finally.
Stand Up and Shout – This song starts with a riff that has always worked for me since the first time I played this album 42 years ago. That opening riff is what I feel to be up there in terms of a “statement song”. I’ve written about that concept a few times before in this vinyl series – a song or a riff, or a vocal or SOMETHING that says “Hey, this isn’t what you were expecting” or “This is something new/different”. That applies here. After listening to Dio song for five prior studio albums with the likes of Blackmore & Iommi, this screeching sound from (let’s face it, he mostly was a) a then unknown singer. The rest of the band smokes here too, but for me, this is a “Here’s Vivian Campbell, fuckers” song. I mean there’s some great drum fills by Vinnie in here, I love what Ronnie does with his vocal delivery, and of course Jimmy holds the whole thing down. But for me this was always about Vivian’s guitar. It’s an absolute fucking banger of a song and one that says “Here’s Dio”. As much as I love this album, and all the songs on it, I don’t think any of the other songs should have been first, this one smacks you in the face and then continues to do so so until it’s over 3:19 later. In fact, I forgot about that until it was over, it’s one of my favorite things – a 3-4 min long fast track that just hits you hard and fast. My favorite kind of track.
Holy Diver – Now this is the closest thing I have to a hot take here. But before I get to it, do not misunderstand me. I do not dislike this song. I like it a lot. Having said that.. A lot of people put this song up on a pedestal and refer to it as one of the greatest songs ever. I’ve never understood that. The song is good. I enjoy it a lot. Just don’t think it’s the greatest song he’s ever done. In fact of the entire album here, I think it’s probably my least favorite if I had to rank them from 1 to 9. I’d rank it last, but again – not because I don’t like it, I do. It’s just not “pedestal worthy”. Musically it starts off with something I always felt was very Sabbath influenced – the long meandering intro that is keyboard dominated before the main song kicks in. That intro is over a minute long here on its own. The song once the full band kicks in has one of those chugging guitar riffs which run through the whole thing. This is not nearly as in your face as Stand Up was. But it’s got a good driving beat that seems to be constructed to feature Ronnie’s vocals more than anything else in the song. The booklet from the deluxe CD edition in 2022 says that “the bones of Holy Diver was written when Ronnie’s last days in Sabbath”, and I can definitely see that influence. The song never ventures beyond its musical landscape – this is not a song of time changes and different sounds. It starts with a sound that works well, and pretty much stays the same from start to end. It’s a good song, one of a lot of people’s favorites. Just not MY favorite, despite my digging the track.
This was also one of the two songs on the album that got an official music video. As I’ve said to people before, as killer as this album is, the music videos produced for it are well… not on the same level. The two videos are well crap, to be honest. Now again, this is not the song I’m talking about, just the music video. It’s Ronnie walking around with a sword and well.. has anyone ever properly tried to figure out the plot here? He’s walking around a castle trying to look menacing with a sword, and what?
Gypsy – While there’s no songs on this album that are TRULY overlooked or unknown, I’d ay this one is probably the closest to that this album has. When people think of the Holy Diver album, they usually think of the title track, or Rainbow in the Dark. Maybe Invisible or Don’t Talk to Strangers. You don’t usually hear of people clamoring for bands to cover the song Gypsy. But this song is here, and while perhaps not the most well remembered, it has a lot to offer. It starts off with a cool Vivian riff. Not as perhaps blistering as Stand Up, but it gets me going for sure. It has a faster pace than Holy Diver, kind of the middle of those two tracks. It does have a really great guitar solo. The main part of the song is an another solid beat that drives things along – much in the same way that Holy Diver did, but this is a different pace. I also love Ronnie’s vocal delivery here, it sounds a little more “pained” – if that makes a sense. Like there’s more emotion behind certain parts of it. There’s no hook to this song that rises to the level of something like the keys in Rainbow in the Dark, but that doesn’t mean this song should be overlooked. There’s a great beat here, some great vocals – another in the long line of bangers on this album. But then what on this album isn’t great? :)
It’s also got quite a long fade out. The song is 3:41 in total, and the fadeout starts around 3:10. I wonder why such a long fadeout.
Caught in the Middle – Another great riff from Viv to start this song – a theme we have here. I’ve already written about the “beat” a bunch this song, but it is a thing here too. I really love the beat here. Great sound that drives this song. Viv’s guitar sound is quite clean here, and works super well. There’s also a bit of my old friend here, the time change. This is the kind of song that gets me to play the ol air guitar sitting at my desk. There’s been plenty of songs over the years that I listen to dozens of times, and still don’t grasp onto the lyrics – this is one of them. Can’t bloody tell you what this song is about, despite hearing it a ton. In fact, it’s not one I can retain the lyrics to at all. I mean I remember things like “city lights” and the few words here and there, but that’s almost a non issue. Ronnie’s singing in this song is almost like another musical instrument. I know he’s singing, but it all blends together into one sound. Really fluid sounding guitar solo that ends well, and leads back into the main verse sound of the song. Good transition there. In some ways this is like Gypsy, you don’t hear a ton of people talking about this track, and that shouldn’t be – great track.
Don’t Talk to Strangers – “Don’t dream of women, cuz they’ll only bring you down!”. When this album came out I was 18 years old, and well, women weren’t a strong point in my life. Certainly liked them, had a girlfriend or two in high school, but when this came out I was solo and the “don’t dream of women” thing almost struck like a personal warning. hahah. It’s a stupid memory I agree, but these reviews are generally personal, so I thought I’d throw it out there and mock myself.
“I’m Darkness, I’m anger, I’m PAIN!”
Musically this starts off like a lot of Dio led songs have. It’ll be really slow in the part, with some of Ronnie’s lighter vocal deliveries. It’ll go on that like that for a bit, until they hit a point on the album where the whole band kicks in, and then kicks you in the face. I’m talking about stuff like Sabbath’s Falling off the Edge of the World or Sign of the Southern Cross. That kind of thing. That’s where this song goes. Even the first thing Ronnie sings here is a whisper – the title of the song. It’s kind of a simple way to look at it, but if you like the way the “soft then BAM!” thing happens in the two previously mentioned songs, you’ll dig this, as it’s the same vibe. In fact, if this is one of the two songs that Ronnie had started while still in Sabbath, it would make sense as that trick was used twice on the album before this (Mob Rules). The whole band here is fast and in your face like Stand Up is like. I love the melody here, the fast part isn’t just speed for speed’s sake, there’s a great melody to go along with it. It builds and builds until we get to Vivian’s solo which is of course blistering, and really killer shit. His style is way different than Iommi or Blackmore, but man does he hold his own with those giants with the kind of stuff he delivers here. After the solo, the song comes down a bit pace wise, and the early quieter part re-appears, but not fully that slow. It’s a great time change idea which doubles down on the “soft then BAM!” idea. If Stand Up & Shout wasn’t on this album, this track would be a contender for best thing on the album. This is some epicly killer shit.
Straight Through the Heart – Side 2 of the album starts with this track that starts off with a drum intro, something untold yet to this point. The beat here is a different vibe than the songs that came before it. There’s some “squealing” in the guitar playing, and the beat has time changes aplenty. Love that stuff. It’s not the same couple of notes from front to start, one of my favorite things as it mixes up the song. I can like a song with the same beat all the way through, but there’s a few different sounds in this one song which is a new idea to this point on the album. About halfway through the song before we get the traditional guitar solo there was a vocal sequence from Ronnie that sounded like a lyrical interpretation of a guitar solo itself. Now I know Ronnie has always had the chops to do just about anything with his vocal delivery. But I adored this part. I’m specifically speaking of this part of the lyrics…
Hanging from the cobwebs in your mind
Looks like a long, long way to fall
No one never told me life was kind
I guess I never heard it, never heard it all, no
I adored that part, and the solo that it leads into culminates with a fluid sound that reminds me a bit of Ritchie. Viv is good enough on his own that he doesn’t need to clone anyone, but man it sounded like that old Rainbow vibe for a part of the solo in here. Great damn stuff. I also adore the way the song ends. It’s not a fade out, it’s not a hard cut, but it’s a nice ending – the last 10-15 seconds or so of the song.
Invisible – I love the slightly meandering guitar sound that starts off this song. Viv just throws out there some guitar sounds that are slower but I love this intro. I don’t think the song would work without it. You can also hear Jimmy Bain a bunch in the early part of this song. It too is a cooked from the recipe of “soft than BAM!”, but it doesn’t really feel like that in the same way. But it does start off slow and then change gears and go hard and heavy. In fact, this is one of the heavier beats on the album, which is probably why I like it so much. This beat is heavy AF, and mixed with some Vivian guitar accents that break up the heavy – a killer track. The middle part has a big time change, which breaks up the heavy with a bit of a mellow part. I love this track from front to back for the guitar work, the lyrics, the rhythm section. Just some amazingly killer shit. It’s probably my second or third favorite on the entire album, and despite loving it so much I find it hard to write about, as it falls under one of those “Oh go fucking listen to it, you’ll get it”.
As a kid I spent a lot of time pontificating over the lyrics “In the palace of the virgin lies the chalice of the soul, and it’s likely you might find the answer there”. I really REALLY tried to get into Ronnie’s head with those lyrics. Never really managed to sort that out. But overall, this song has some of my favorite lyrics on the entire album – just love the sonic flow that comes from the chosen words here. Not from their meaning, but I get enjoyment from their phonetics.
Rainbow in the Dark – Well, it’s Ronnie’s signature song. That keyboard riff, while simplistic is definitely notable. It’s a good track, despite its overplay. If you’ve read this far in my review of the album, then I absolutely guarantee you know this song, and don’t need me to explain it to you. I’m going to mostly skip writing about this one. But don’t misinterpret that as disliking it. I do like it, but due to the EXTREME overplay, it’s not one I really feel like putting a lot of words down for. I mean when I saw him do it live, I enjoyed it. I do still enjoy it when I listen, but I don’t go out of my way to listen to it because I’ve heard it a fuck ton of times.
One thing that was cool about the movie is that it was used in the soundtrack to “Thor: Love & Thunder” (a 2022 Marvel movie). It wasn’t used in the movie as such – after the mid credit scene, Rainbow in the Dark played during the credit roll. As you do with a Marvel movie, you stay all the way to the total end of the credits as there’s usually something. I was quite surprised to hear Rainbow in the Dark here, as I had no idea it was coming. I normally look at my phone waiting for the goodies at the end, but not this time. I sang with the entire song as it played in the credits. It also wasn’t the full album version either, it was slightly edited (I went and played Love & Thunder from Disney Plus to check). But it was badass having that play – I must have looked like a right moron – the mid 50’s guy singing along to movie credits. :)
It is the other song from the album that got a music video made for. I also dare anyone to explain what the events in the video have to do with the song itself or its lyrics. You can’t.
Shame on the Night – The album closes out with this moody, slower track. To some extent this has that vibe of an old plodding early 70’s Black Sabbath song – like something off Volume 4. It really has that vibe to it a lot. Ronnie’s vocals soar here. If this song really did start life back when Ronnie was in Sabbath, man this would have fucking smoked with Iommi on it. Not to say Viv isn’t great here – he smokes. But I always wonder about some songs that show a Sabbath influence. It’s got a killer sound to it that I actually find it hard to point to a single thing and go “See – that!”.
At least until we get to the last two minutes of the song. At exactly 3:20 in, we get this guitar sound from Vivian that sounds like he’s running the entire fretboard – it’s a 2 note really badass sounding guitar thing that I’ve loved since 1983, and continue to. It’s small, it’s short, but one of my favorite Viv moments on the album. It’s a lead-in to the very LONG fadeout of this song. The last two mins have a different tonal sound than the 3 mins that started the song. The album closes out this way, and I really love this – almost like two short songs mashed together. Some nice drum fills in here from Vinny, someone whose name I haven’t called out enough on this album. Great way to close out the album in the exact same way that Stand Up was a great way to open the album.
This review ended up being wordy, but then that’s not a huge surprise, as I’ve discovered in this series if I have some memories to draw from, and the subject is something I like, the words flow freely. This album is as close to a masterpiece as there possibly could be in the world of hard rock / metal music. I’ve never really run into anyone who said they actively dislike this album. Obviously some like it more than others. Some love it. Heck, the Deep Purple Podcast guys have it ranked sixth overall of everything they’ve ever reviewed. I think most Dio fans will agree with the assertion that it’s the best overall Dio album.
If you made it to the bottom of this article, I’ll lay money you own this. Probably more than one copy. I don’t really need to sell the album to you – you already know it. It’s killer, and easily my favorite overall Dio album. Go spin it yourself if you have it. If you don’t, what’s wrong with you? Go get a copy now.
P.S. My favorite overall Dio SONG is not from this album, it’s from an album about 7 later down the catalog, I’ll get to that one later. :)
